[Vision2020] Re: Only the short sighted think Death Penalty Must Be Aboli...

[joekc at adelphia.net]

Tony,

1/ Here is a rule worth knowing: No argument, no fallacy. I'm not making any claims about the causal connection between crime and punishment. I am questioning your claim that the death penalty is a deterent. My point was that IN LIGHT OF the fact that the US has a high degree of both crime and punishment, the claim that more punishment leads to less crime seems suspicious. Of course an argument of your own in support of your claim might clear that up. That argument is ...?

2/ You call the taking of an innocent life in the case of wrongful capital punishment "a tragic but unavoidable consequence of the administering  of justice by fallible human beings." You might say the same thing about war. Why can't you think of abortion in demand in the same way? Why does the one sound callous to you yet the other merely pragmatic? Is it just the numbers (which, by the way, I would question)?

3/ Your mother was wise, indeed! Of course, why not beer AND logic? I'm teaching a course this summer at WSU if you are interested!

--
Joe Campbell

---- ToeKneeTime at aol.com wrote: 

=============
Joe,
 
Couple good questions, here we go.
 
The logic that the death penalty does not deter violent crime because  
America has capital punishment and also has high rates of violent crime, ignores  2 
important points.  1)  This country has no realistic program for  capital 
punishment.  Offenders languish on death row for more than a  decade in many 
cases.  Were justice rendered more swiftly, we might see a  corresponding decrease 
in violent crime.  2)  Your argument sounds  awfully close to an ad hoc ergo 
prompter hoc fallacy.  Could there not be  other factors at work in this 
scenario?
 
Regarding my comparison between lives saved by capital punishment verses  the 
elimination of an occasional inappropriately applied execution:  It is  just 
inconceivable that the very small number of innocents executed by the  state 
could possibly come close to the number of future victims of predators  spared 
execution.  It is silly to demand studies in support of the  blatantly obvious.
 
You misquote me when you say that I regard it as "OK" that an occasional  
innocent should be executed.  I of course never said that.  I regard  it as a 
tragic but unavoidable consequence of the administering  of justice by fallible 
human beings.
 
With regard to my Mom's money,  I spent it pursuing something far more  
important than logic:  Booze and broads.
 
Making Mommy proud,  --Tony